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Hopefully, by the time you get out of high school you learn that, for better or worse, your reputation is everything. Unfortunately, when you’re young, sometimes you don’t quite get that. The good news is, if you mess up, you’ll probably end up moving to a new town or city when you’re older anyway so you can start over. But in business, it’s not that easy. Throw in the Internets and it’s pretty much impossible to escape your reputation.

For example, if you’re employee or contractor quits in the middle of a job, you need to find yourself another employee to finish that job, regardless of added expense. If you paid said employee a deposit and they quit before they got halfway through the first round, the best you can do is ask for it back. But considering you probably paid them a couple weeks prior, chances are you won’t see that money again. It’s the course of business. What you need to do is, notify your client immediately. Again, as in most cases, don’t be an alarmist. Tell your client that you saw this coming and you already had a contingency plan in place. Let them know that another developer on your team has taken over so please allow a few extra days whilst they are brought up to speed. Pretty much anything can be handled with proactive, honest dialogue. In a case like this, don’t email the client. CALL THEM. Then you can email a follow up. What you can’t do is whine and complain and don’t blame the guy that just quit on you. Dig your heels in and get the job done.

As a small business owner, there is little you can do if your employee quits mid-way through a job. If you don’t have another source that can continue the work, you need to do everything you can to find one. Hopefully, they will work on 100% at completion of a project, but chances are they won’t. You can’t blame them or ask them, so you must find a way to pay them in order to keep the project on task. You need to do everything possible to keep your reputation in good standing. Your client will understand. They will see your efforts and will appreciate your hard work. Your margin may have been cut in half, but that’s nothing compared to your reputation being…wait for it…cut it half.